On Dying Lights – A Review

I reread poems that remind me of my dad. I’m feeling sick and distant. That out of my head sort of sick. That two steps to the right kind of sick. Like everything comes out not wrong, but not right kind of sick.

I asked her point blank: “am I bad at this?” And she said no. But maybe she’s wrong. Or maybe she’s just scared to tell me.

There’s a lot to run through here. So I’m doing what I can to take even steps through the griefed pages. There’s a numbered list and I’m backtracking leafing corners of the ones that require more time later.

Later I’ll see the time I’ve got and realize there’s not much there for anything except planning. And I’ll wonder what I did to wind up here. And I’ll tell myself it’s just the kind of problem that’s a hair width short of long-term problematic. And I’ll be right.

Until then, I’ll go over my folded notes on Hayden and Thomas. I’ll smooth out the creases on Hughes and Wordsworth. And I’ll hop into the classic car in my mind and see the pieces of yesterday and see how I’m doing what I can in his image.

My hands have more scars than I remember. They shake now too. There are lines where I smile. But they’re hidden in the mess of my mostly unkept beard. I still sing those sad songs I used to. The ones I make up as I go. The ones you asked me about, that I sang when I was alone.

You know that I thought you had cameras in the house? That’s where the paranoia at its worse took me. I guess you wouldn’t know what I never told you.

I bet it was the neighbors. They’re the ones who told on me for my austere lyrics. The ones who told on me on that winter Sunday. I could’ve known sooner. With the way they started treating me kinder. The way they started talking to me when I was walking alone at night. When you were all asleep.

Do you remember when I told you all about that sadness in me? When I asked why I felt mad all the time. And how you didn’t know the word for it either but guessed it was depression. And do you remember how I was better after that?

I guess you wouldn’t know what I never told you.

That’s when I learned to hate doing it, you know? To hate becoming that lie. That’s when I felt gross cheating truth and turning hands.

That’s when I think I realized I could be better.

I know it wasn’t all roses. Or maybe it was. It was just the thorns I saw more then, but the buds are well on their way in now.

I guess in some ways you might still not know me from Adam. The parts of us that don’t quite mesh. But I think that’s true of anyone, you and me not more, probably less. Knowing comes in pairs, I suppose. And I guess I haven’t done my part. So maybe I’ll call you now, we’ll have a heart to heart.

Verse has come so suddenly, so with this I must depart. Otherwise sonnets come, and from there I can’t embark.

Thanks for reading. Happy Friday(ish)

-Connor